PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Led by local artist and choreographer Marguerite Hemmings, Mural Arts Philadelphia's Porchlight Program tried a little something new this past year.
Our Land, Our Movement is an expansive public art project that reaches teens from West Philly, Olney and Chinatown with the goal of connecting them with their communities and the earth through workshops and performances.
“Our Land, Our Movement is an experiment,” Hemmings said. “Trying to heal our bodies in relationship to the land, in relationship to outside. We work with teenagers, but we are also looking to expand to people who just feel disconnected from place and from self. And we do that through movement and also through connecting literally to the earth with farming, herbal medicine.”
The project gave the teens a number of entry points — through farming, performance, community healing.
“We tried to have conversations around systemic issues that keep people from feeling safe in their neighborhoods and having connection to the land,” Hemmings said. “But we really just tried to do it through practice. We're like: Okay, let's get y'all out here growing food.”
It may not look like Mural Arts, she said, but there is art in that practice.
“A lot of people ask, ‘Where's the mural?’ And there was no mural. There was a series of performance rituals — like a live mural,” she said. “The teens got to show off some of their moves and just feel like they could be witnessed in their fullness, really.”